Annual Security Council Open Debate on Women and Peace and Security
“Strengthening women’s resilience and leadership as a path to peace in regions plagued by armed groups”
Thursday, 20 October 2022
Statement of Italy, delivered by Ambassador Maurizio Massari, Permanent Representative to the United Nations
Italy welcomes the initiative of Gabon to convene the Security Council Annual Open Debate on Women and Peace and Security, which allows us to reiterate our strong support for the Resolution 1325 and the implementation of the WPS agenda.
Italy aligns itself with the statements delivered by the EU, the Group of Friends of WPS and the Group of Friends of R2P, and would like to deliver a few remarks in its national capacity.
Promoting the full, equal and meaningful participation of women in all spheres of public life and in the main decision-making processes is key to bringing change and fostering peaceful coexistence. Since the adoption of the historic Resolution 1325 a lot has been accomplished, but women and girls continue to disproportionately bear the burden of conflict and remain underrepresented or unrepresented in peace process efforts, in spite of their constructive contribution to conflict resolution at grassroots level and their presence on the frontlines.
Italy has a long-standing tradition of promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment. We have strongly supported Resolution 1325 since its adoption and we devote significant efforts and resources to promoting women’s participation in peace and international mediation processes. Women have proven to be extremely successful in protecting civilians, accessing communities and creating relationships of trust with local populations, in particular with the most vulnerable categories.
Peacebuilding and Peacekeeping mean also mediation, a sector in which women have proved to be particularly effective. It has been demonstrated that a peace agreement is 20 % more likely to last at least two years and 35 % more likely to last 15 years when women are included in peace processes.
Mr President,
At national level, we are implementing the fourth Action Plan on WPS (for the period 2020-2024) and we are a proud supporter of the Mediterranean Women Mediators’ Network launched in October 2017 to promote gender equality and foster women’s inclusion in peace processes, mediation efforts and peacebuilding in the Mediterranean region.
The Network offers training, capacity building and networking opportunities and has led to the establishment of the Global Alliance of Regional Women Mediators Network in September 2019, uniting the voices from 6 different regions of the world in a call to accelerate the implementation of UNSCR 1325 on the ground.
At the international level, we have strengthened our partnership with the UN system in favor of Women and Girls, through increased core funding to UN Women and policies commitments. We support the action of the UN agencies on the ground to uphold the full realization of SDG5 and we have also increased our financial support to the UN Women and Peace Humanitarian Fund. We strongly support the Action4Peacekeeping Initiative and we firmly believe in the benefits provided by the presence of well-integrated female personnel in peacekeeping operations. We also uphold the importance of streamlining WPS in all the relevant discussions of this Council.
Mr. President,
The participation of women is a key requisite for creating resilient, inclusive, and peaceful communities. We remain fully committed to the implementation of the Women and Peace and Security agenda in our efforts to pursuing the reinforcement of the global peacekeeping and peacebuilding architecture.
Thank you Mr. President.